Nights of Happiness
by rerouche of the rebellion
Summary: Syaoran x Sakura. Those nights in Hong Kong (and some in Tokyo!) Set between Chapters 222 and 223, when Syaoran and Sakura are reunited!


**Disclaimer:** Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle belongs to CLAMP

**Author's Note: **Those nights in Hong Kong (and some in Tokyo!) Set between Chapters 222 and 223, when Syaoran and Sakura are reunited!

Deals with _tantrism_. It's important to know that I do not practice this. I myself don't belong to a religion that prescribes tantrism. What I know and understand- and respect- about it I've discovered through school, reading and prayer, but I have never practiced it. I'd like to include this quote from a nifty encyclopedia on Hinduism, and insist that I've tried within the story keeping away from the sensationalist-type "tantrism" described:

_"Modern Tantra may be divided into practices based on Hinduism and Buddhism. The form of Hindu Tantra popularly practiced In America is said by Hindu Tantra traditionalists to represent a mutilated and extremely narrow-minded, sensationalist approach encompassing only a misguided thinking about "sacred sexuality," with little reference to its true practice. Traditional Tantrists say their practice involves **much more than mere wizardry or sexual titillation**: like the rest of Yoga (Hindu), it requires self-analysis and the conquest of material ignorance, often through the body, but always through a pure outlook of the mind. 'Real Tantra' is about transforming one's sexual energy into spiritual progress, and has nothing to do with 'sex just for fun'. Those without a guru or lacking in discipline of the mind and body are unfit. It is telling that a Tantrica in West Bengal, a devotee of the Hindu goddess Kali, once said that 'those most fit for Tantra almost never take it up, and those least fit pursue it with zeal.' "_

[hinduism-guide dotcom /hinduism/tantra dotcom htm]

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Nights in Hong Kong. Syaoran and Sakura are still children when they begin them. After all they've been through. He a worn, torn murderer, a soulless puppet made meat for Fei Wong Reed. She a robbed princess, stripped, yo-yo'd like a plaything, and impaled on two ambitious swords. For each other. Fate- well, Yūko- has allowed them rebirth and granted them soft spring nights, happy nights, nights together, at seventeen years old but really a hundred (being replica's and having lived twice so far). Here in Hong Kong.

Their first kiss is a cherry blossom sprung from the parting between Sakura's lips. Pure pink and petal soft. Real flesh, sweetened by the hunger. And it's perfect, even if her lips slip out of Syaoran's with a giggle for a moment. When she regains her balance, on her tip-toes, Syaoran barely has time but his tongue swipes his bottom lip, and his teeth are almost able to scrape her taste from it too, to bring it delightfully inside his mouth, but then her lips take his again and from him trembles a little pleasure-mewl. Then Sakura's being wrapped in his lean, velveteen-gold arms. At seventeen, when the April air is dewy.

These are nights made of kisses that tumble time forward, through the summer nights until Syaoran makes sure he has the means to protect her. Then he formally makes the proposal that may have seemed needless on the surface but defines the beauty of the situation (for what could Syaoran have ever wanted more in his existence than the dignity of kneeling before the princess and begging to cherish her forever?). Kurogane-san and Fai-san would understand, and Mokona too. They smile through the sadness at how wonderful it would have been to marry in front of their friends, in other circumstances: how happy and sweet. But it's all right, it's fine. Sakura's head leans against his shoulder. Even if they don't make it further than this hazy oaken-balcony with its paper lamps, with tiny fluorescent-colored lizards flitting around, the fragrant smoke of the Li family's banquet (for the extravagant occasion of their son's proposal to his Japanese girlfriend) still curling out from the dining hall, further than the smiling eyes who spot them together alone. Even if there's nothing but the living August night sky with all of nature's glorious cries, they're together with a new promise. On their lips and in their hearts.

Sakura invites Syaoran to Tokyo in January, before their wedding, so he can experience snow again. Unspoken, they reminisce about one of the many dimensions they'd once visited, the Spirit Town, with its thick layers of snow and deep blue sky (and that was before Sakura had visited that terrible frozen land... the land of her death at the hands of Fai-san... Celes.)

Most of all, they remember the dimension of acid-Tokyo, where the drama turned most evilly. A memory-feather had found itself below Tokyo Tower and drawn in vampire Subaru, and Syaoran and Sakura and Fai, Kurogane and Mokona found themselves faced with the seal-breaking of Syaoran's right eye. Then horror, and blood and betrayal. Syaoran won't stop drawing Sakura close, wherever they go, mouth whispering kisses when it finds any patch of milky skin, apologizing huskily, always, deprecatingly. Passionately. He'll never forgive himself, never ever. Sakura promises she forgave him before everything, swears that all the pain was worth the new life, and insists on gazing unflinchingly at the Tower and being grateful things happened the way they did. She remembers a little girl in a school uniform, smiling and waving, leading her back to her friends after battles and blood and sand-monsters...

Syaoran will always possess that sadness.

These snowy nights in this Tokyo's streets are kept warm by twinkling neon lights, by soft scarves, and by the pair's alarmed little laughter as they walk along. Warm in the way they huddle stepping off the metro, breath forming moist little puffs in the chill, the freezing white turning Sakura's shy nose pink and Syaoran's amber eyes mercuric. Sakura's friends try accepting her fiancé- abnormally-proper and somewhat stoic- after copious helpings of rice-wine and a few rounds of karaoke. They'll never understand the rapid escalation, how he can call Sakura "princess" so intimately. But, his smile is genuine. Syaoran and Sakura are warm in each other's arms in the late night, layered in pajama's under Sakura's feather-mattress, after her parents retire. They try and remember how many of Mokona's One-Hundred-and-Eight Secret Talents they actually know and what the others could be, and try to stifle giggles that make their stomach-muscles ache. And it's perfect. The only times the nights are cold are when a teardrop appears on Sakura's cheek like a silver snowflake, and it tastes like the kisses of her magic memory-feathers when Syaoran takes it away.

This Tokyo will burn and break and crumble, till it's desert. It will become their home, Sakura's father's kingdom, Clow Country, in centuries and in another dimension.

Syaoran and Sakura marry in the spring, here in Hong Kong. The priest and the whole congregation twitter with emotion when the pair link pinkies as if they'd been childhood playmates (which, unbeknownst to this particular time-and-space continuum, they had been). They almost hear Syaoran say, "I swear to protect you, princess," and they definitely hear Sakura say, "Syao... I love you." The intensity is odd for all who'd never believe what this young man and his consort have witnessed and what they endured to get to this place. What's also strange is that Sakura's entire wedding train is made of long albino-peacock feathers. They make her look like she was created for some kind of sacrament. Which, she was. Who knew it'd been the devil himself- Fei Wong Reed- who had created an angelic being as beautiful as Sakura, the way she looked on her wedding day? He had created the pair from originals into clones, but his plan had failed. The clones had died before his plot to dominate the dimensions could succeed. But, then, Yūko had reconstructed both their lives from the grasp of death. The dimensional witch knew. The dimensional moon-goddess blessed the children, Syaoran and Sakura, with all she could before she finally perished. That's why there's a crescent moon behind the altar and lilies, all white lilies, among the pink of the cherry blossoms.

Their wedding night is clumsy in virginity. As Sakura cries out, in surprise and in pleasure- and a little bit of pain- Syaoran is there. He repeats some little mantras, "forgive me, princess... forgive your Syaoran... please," with her name under his breath. He's there for her, with her, in every emotion... in every new discovery. Gentle as ever. Her ecstasy is his, as well as her pain. She's as magnificent in his arms, under his hands, beneath his moving hips, as the most perfect of maidens- his bride, his princess. They're together at last, the way it's always meant to be, together in this perfect way. It's unbelievable to think that so long ago there was only darkness and bloodshed, when this act of love is so pure.

Sakura finally throws her head back against the pillow moaning, "_Syaoran_." And for all that her voice was always sweet and airy, even in her gruesome death, it's now the tenor of a woman well-initiated. Syaoran whimpers in reply, feeling the strength of her orgasm around his rawest self, the needy press of her fingers against the skin of his back, and he surrenders with a rough declaration of love. Syaoran and Sakura see their own wonder reflected in the other's bright eyes. In this moment of abandon, their thoughts flutter like the memory-feathers. Their hearts break and their souls twist tight, and their eyes go blind with tears. This night they spend in butterfly-sleep, waking over and again, murmuring and kissing, to be together, then back to sleep. Over again, till they're sticky and sore and the dawn grey of April 1st (the day they'd promised to stand as their conjoined birthday, _Watanuki_, so, so many years ago) seeps through the windows and shivers their flushed-up skin. Whispers of devotion mingle under the riotous chirping of the Chinese morning larks, notorious for imitating human sounds. It would seem that Sakura really is God's beloved daughter the way her sleepy smile steals the sunlight from the dawning heavens just for her husband, for her knight Syaoran.

As time goes by, this act of lovemaking never feels redundant, but it morphs. What began as discovery has now become skill, easy and natural. It's different each time, with new details to remember: realizing soft familiarity, deftness, and they learn the crevices of one another's deepest selves. Wishing pleasure, granting pleasure, yielding to the selflessness. In thanks that they're together. It humbles them, even if the intimacy brings risk, even though its frightfulness and beauty bring them to tears. They surrender everything with gratitude: that they _live_.

Nights are luxurious with it, lazy, impassioned with it. Some nights are sweet- those nights are everything. Nights with stars like those in Yūko's transmutation wheels (nights where Sakura holds the moon's soil within her womb just for Syaoran to conquer) are ritual.

The dimensional witch, in granting them new life never altered their pasts, never reaped from them anything that hadn't already been paid out. Wisdom remains within either of them from lives already lived. Nights slide with the mysteries of tantric lovemaking, instincts triggering something greater than anything Fei Wong Reed could have imagined in all his selfishness. He and her slide against each other, infinitely reverent, he into her, graceful and easy. They learn the pace and rhythm that grants them sweetest bliss along the nerve endings: that unbridles inhibitions, leaving them unaware and yet hyper-aware of conscious reality. The whole night will have gone and the day will have started without their realizing, and yet every moment counted. This is the mystery of their nights. They know when it's time for it again. There is a time for it. Elated days go by. This is definitely a harsher dimension than any other. But they are safe for now, thanks to wealth and heritage. Blessings and curses all the same. Syaoran's family is one of the last of the ancient Chinese lineages. His devotion lies in protecting what he has. He has always protected what he loves. And he is a fierce negotiator, and a fiercer warrior. He's intensely aware of all that's expected of him as heir to the Li name; it's a cruel world he and his Sakura are in, made of greed and false pretenses of progress. The world smokes out traces of the sacred traditions and massacres the ideologies as well as their adherents. It's a world seeming to still be ruled by Fei Wong Reed, though he's perished. Syaoran's duty is clear: that is the way of his fate. His reason for living is his Sakura. His perfect consort, his only consort. He lives to see her smile, and she always smiles for him. She is his lady. She captivates all those she meets. The hidden flower of the family, young Syaoran's petal-soft vibrant bride. Sakura possesses the strength and grace of an empress from times past (if only they knew). And they will fight, these two royals.

Days are days and they are fierce days (there are very soft days too). Then come nights, and that is when the mysteries are made. In the nighttime Syaoran and Sakura can crawl again between the sheets and with hands and mouths and moans begin the dance again that takes them home. They look like each other, they always have. A twisting tangle of soft honey hair and large eyes and skin the color of desert dunes with little shocks of cherry-blossom pink in all the best places, the princess and her Syaoran, in the night. This intimacy moves past the inexperience of clumsy cries of shock and shame. No, after their first year together, what sings from their throats when they make love are each other's names in frighteningly-deep timbres. It could almost sound obscene if one didn't know their souls were from Clow Country, a desert country, and that they were continuing the legacy of desert-people, who for millennia and all across the infinite dimensions have always warbled frightening songs up to the Heavens so their god could hear them.

Just like night turns to day so death turns to life. What has died in them so many times will be reborn. The selves that died because of union... do so to bring forth a thing even greater...

"Syaoran."

In the thick velvet summer dusk, Sakura whispers it with all the reverence of the past. Syaoran takes her delicate hand in his and raises it to his lips. He dares look at her eyes. They beckon to him. He comes closer to flutter against her cheek a flower-kiss.

"Yes, my love," as he speaks against her skin he can feel... he begins to know what she has to say. Then she says:

"It's finally come... It's finally here. The life."

Syaoran breathes her in. Could it be? He can actually smell it in the taste of her. He needn't have asked. She needn't have even mentioned it. He knows because she knows and she... is the mother...

His mother.

Yes. Their nights are tantric. They were given by a crested-moon goddess to whom Syaoran and Sakura owe their existence. She is how they've realized this reality. And now what must be fulfilled will be fulfilled and the loop will begin. Has begun.

Together they've conceived the _original_ Syaoran. The source of the father, yet the creation of the father.

Within the dark-as-night womb of Sakura, a princess made real with cherry-blood sacrifice.

And, she, like any mother-to-be, is happy.

These are nights of happiness, Syaoran's and Sakura's, here in Hong Kong.

Happiness and mystery.

Realized. Together.

In these nights, turning to days, turning to dreams.

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¸.·' ¸.·' *·~-.¸-( **tsubasa reservoir chronicle** )-,.-~*¸.·' ¸.·'

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**End Notes: **This was one of the hardest things ever to write because I wanted to get it perfect, and besides: Syaoran and Sakura are my ONE TRUE PAIRING **[O.T.P.]**


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